Gratitude & Faith in God

President Hugh B. Brown who had met with women in Europe during WWII: "These brave women have carried on in the face of almost insuperable difficulties...To kneel in prayer with these women and to hear them thank God for their simple blessings, for the preservation of their lives, and the lives of their loved ones, and for their scanty provisions and their windowless homes is at once an inspiration and a reproof to many of us whose material blessings far exceed any enjoyed here, but who frequently complain at being deprived of a few luxuries"  (Daughters in My Kingdom, 78).

*WOW*  This hit me right at my core, because over the past several months I have been heard to complain often that I want my own home again and that I'm just not happy where we are.  Perspective and gratitude enter my heart!  I am so thankful that we have a warm home that accommodates our family, that allows us to gather together and be safe from the elements and provides a haven from the world around us.  It is not important what it looks like, or whether we "own it", but I have made it HOME for now and I will be happy here for as long as we need to stay here.  I thank God for blessing me so abundantly in my life and I'm going to make more effort in my life to see His hand in my life.

Over the weekend I had the opportunity to attend my Stake Relief Society activity.  I had woken up late and had considered not going, but as I've learned in the past, when I do not feel like attending church on Sunday or a meeting, that is when I really need to be there and I always come away feeling so glad that I went and having learned or been reminded of something important in my life!  As was this activity on Saturday.  The theme was "Look Up!!!"  So many times, we as women fall into the trap of comparing ourselves to others, thinking that we're not good enough, pretty enough, our house isn't clean enough, we don't get enough done etc., etc.  This causes us to lose faith in ourselves and focus on what is important, and often causes us to drop our heads and look down in despair and disappointment. 

What we SHOULD be doing is to LOOK UP to God and to Christ, our Savior to find the strength that we need in our lives and to know that we are a DAUGHTER OF GOD!!!  He did not create us to be average!  Our potential was "installed" by the Creator.  How we use this potential is up to us individually.  We are the ones who doubt what we are capable of.  We are the ones who compare.  We are the ones who judge ourselves most harshly.  

God will align your path in this life to what our potential can be if we allow Him in.  We have to have faith, be still and make time for Him in our lives to direct us.  This is exactly why we are often asked to do things outside of our comfort zone.  What may seem overwhelming and challenging is exactly what we need to grow!  We must learn to trust in God- He breathed the very life into us and holds us in the palm of His hand!

We hold within us greatness!  Consider our heritage!  Develop qualities that we would want others to learn and that we would want to pass down to our children!  I do not want my children to think that they are not good enough.  I want them to be able to develop their talents and to follow their dreams.  In order for me to instill confidence in my children I need to be a confident woman!  

Satan seeketh that all men might be miserable like unto himself, yet we know that man (and woman) were created that they might have joy!  

President Monson- If we exercise faith to LOOK UP to God then we will be amazed at the burdens that are lifted from us.

I want all of you, my friends and family, to know what beautiful women you are.  So many of you have truly touched my life in small and great ways.  Please do not get caught in the trap of comparing yourself with others around you.  If there is something that you struggle with that you wish that you could do better at that maybe a friend of yours does beautifully at, don't tear yourself down about it, try to get better and follow their example.  Trust me, there are probably things that you are good at that that same person wishes they were better at!  We all have strengths and weaknesses and we should use those strengths to build each other!  I love you and I thank God every day for the good people that he has put in my life.

30-Day Photography Challenge. Day 4- Something Greenish.

There's not much green around here these days...

President's Day Fun

Brady, Liv and I had fun learning about George Washington and Abraham Lincoln on Monday as it was President's Day and Brady had the day off from school.  As we were working on our art project I was telling them fun facts about the Presidents.  To my amazement Brady told me all about Abe Lincoln's life!  I shouldn't be that amazed I guess, he retains information really well.  He even told me: "President Lincoln was famous for helping the slaves during the Civil War.  After the war was over someone didn't like him because he had helped free the black people so when President Lincoln went to a play with his wife he was killed by someone during the resting period/" (intermission).

I am so lucky to have such a cute kiddo who loves to learn!  

30-Day Photography Challenge. Day 3- Clouds

I've had this post ready for two days now...apparently I needed to catch up with the times and install Google Chrome in order to post to my blog.  Love the faster uploads!  I took this picture at about 7:30 a.m. from my back porch.  I was a day late on this post because the day earlier there was not a single cloud to be seen- just massive, dreary cloud cover.  Thank heavens for sunshine!!!  This first picture sets apart the grayness of the storm clouds from the beautiful blue sky and the white morning clouds behind...

I liked the softened effect of this picture and how it deepened the sihlouette of the trees and made them the focus of the picture....

Dress-ups with Olivia

I LOVE it when my kids use their imaginations and have fun playing with dress-ups.  I HATE when the dress-ups are scattered from one end of the house to another....

All concoctions from Olivia's own wild imagination!

Firefighter Gypsy Princess???

 

Trooper and Vader

  

Half-naked Cowgirl Pirate and Miss Captain America

Olivia has also developed her own new sense of style.  More days than not she wants to get dressed on her own and most often will choose a tank top with a white shirt underneath.  She also really likes headbands, of which she has one of every color, and on this particular day she added some bows to the headband!!!

And if BIG GIRLS must accessorize, so must their baby dolls!!!  Every day Liv gets "Baby Stella" dressed and gives her a bow in her hair and "earrings" aka hair clips!!!

Some more pictures I found while"cleaning up" the picture files:  I figured since we were on a dress-ups post about Olivia I'd throw in these cute pics of Brady dressed up as Buzz Lightyear!  he had gotten this light-up sword from the circus and for about a week afterwards proceeded to pretend I was a dragon and "slay" me!

He was about 3 1/2 in these pictures- a little bit younger than Olivia is now!!!

hemmed jeans. B-R-I-L-L-I-A-N-T!!!

Might I just say:  "Pinterest, you are exactly what I've been looking for all these years!!!  Thank you for coming into my life, and I'm sorry that I ignored you for so long!"

I wish that my mom knew this little trick while we were growing up!  Despite her best efforts all of us "shorties" in our family often wore high-water hemmed jeans to school.  Besides, hemmed jeans just never look right...

WELL THAT WAS UNTILL NOW!!!  Can you tell that I just hemmed 2 inches off of these NON-MATERNITY jeans?!?!?! 

This is SO simple, it's not even a tutorial!  ALLyou have to do is decide how much you want to "take off" from the length of the jeans and then, using a measuring tape fold the jeans to the desired length (like making a cuff).  Be sure to measure and pin all the way around for even length.  Then sew right along the top of the cuff where the original hemline is.  Turn back under and PRESTO-CHANGE-O!!!! 

You can cut the remainder off if you're done growing like me and then use fray check or use stitch witch to keep in place, or be lazy like me and leave as is (just make sure to hang dry and fold the cuff under and flat).  If you have growing children leave as is and when the child needs the hem let out just unpick the stitching!  BRILLIANT!!!

30-Day Photography Challenge. What I'm wearing...

I couldn't pull this one off on my own as easily so I cheated a little and had Brady stand on a chair take the picture (because, I've found that a picture from above does wonders for my baby-weight!)

30-Day Photography Challenge: Self-Portrait.

My friend, Rachel is doing a 30-Day Photography challenge that she invited others to participate in as well.  I thought it would fun since I used to do so much with photography in highschool and college but haven't played around with it in a while...

I didn't realize how hard it would be to take a picture of myself.  After several tries, this is the best I came up with.  I actually kind of like it; it makes me look so different than what I am used to seeing in the mirror. 

Will You Be My Valentine?

We decided to STAY IN this year, so the kids and I made a special dinner for daddy!  Olivia dessed up (already in her ballet clothes) and Brady as a French waiter!!  The kids got to use the nice plates and glass cups too, we had candlight and nice music in the background.

Daddy snuck in while we were gone during the day and left this beautiful bouquet of roses and some hearts he'd cut out!!!

The kids woke up to being "heart-attacked" this year!  We didn't get any candy, and no one said anything about it!  Although, Brady did get quite a bit of candy from Valentine's at school.

I heart attacked Brady's bedroom floor and the stairs for him so it would be the first thing he saw when he woke up!  On a few of the hearts I wrote out little gifts they could each get, such as:  A new toy at the dollarstore, pick out a new book, a night out at their favorite restaurant and request their favorite dinner.  They can cash these in over the course of the next month.  We usually go out a couple of times a month, so I figured we'd let the kids pick and the books we'll probably pick out at D.I....so a creative, fun way to give them gifts, allow them to make their own choices and avoid candy and expensive presents!  We might make this a tradition!!!

Brady and Liv also helped me cut out a ton of hearts to heart attack our bedroom for Daddy!!!  I asked Brady to spread them over the bed and he asked:

Brady:  "Why would I spread them all over the bed?"

Mommy:  "Because it is romantic?  Do you know what that means???"  

Brady: "Oh, yeah, like to make your bed all nice and stuff before you go to bed!!!"

Mommy: "Exactly!!!"

I thought that was a cute little exchange with such sweet innocence! 

Calling all Super Heros....

I've set the bar (a little too) high for birthday parties around our house!  BUT, we've had some pretty spectacular parties, if I do say so myself!  This year we did a Super Hero party theme, focusing on Batman, Superman, Captain America and Spider Man.  I was glad I ended up having an extra week to work on the party  because our entire living room got redecorated, I made some pretty awesome costumes and was able to get everything done like  had imagined it in my head!

I got the idea for the birthday banner above on Pinterest and made it by hand out of paper and ribbon I already had. Then I wrapped all of the picture frames in the room with craft paper or wrapping paper that I bought.  I got the idea for the circle garlands from my friend, Charlotte's nursery she just recently finished for her new baby.

The Decorations:

I wrapped books, frames and recycled boxes in paper and either drew or cut out windows in black paper.

Gotham City:

I already had the masks so those were easy props and I made the "medals."

The Costumes:

Olivia wanted a "Princess Super Hero" cape...this is what I came up with!  I thought it turned out pretty cute too!  I used some fabrics I already had- leftover pink from a project and the shiny gold was from a remnant I'd bought at D.I. for $1.00!!! a few years ago!

Grandpa LOVED Zach's costume- and Zach didn't seem to mind wearing it at all!!!

 My three guys!!! 

Our SUPER Family!!!!

The Games:

For Batman we played "Beat the Batcave"- I hid bat necklaces all over Olivia's room and then closed the blinds and curtains to make it dark in there.  The kids had to go in one by one and find one of the necklaces, a.k.a. training medals.

For Spiderman we played "Web the Enemy" outside.  I split the kids up into Villains and Webslingers and we played a game of tag.  The villains held laminated pictures of villains in Spiderman, such as The Sandman, Dr. Octo, Venom, Rhino, and The Green Goblin. The Webslingers had cans of silly string and they chased after the villains, trying to sling their "web" and get the villain.  Once the villain was caught they were webbed and had to freeze.  Then we switched roles and played some more.  To take up more time and get more wiggles out we also ran some silly races. Thank goodness for warm weather in February!

One of Brady's best friends, Aiden who got webbed as Rhino!!!

Dr. Octo, a.k.a. Lily

For Superman we raced "Faster than a Speeding Bullet" and "Able to Leap Tall Building in a Single Bound" and used some of the building decorations as props for the kids to jump over.  We also made Kryptonite GOO from borax, water, glue and green food coloring.  It was pretty slimy so we added more glue, which then made it too firm.  The kids thought it was a pretty cool experiement though!

For Captain America we played "Shield Slinger" and knocked over cans (recycled formula cans!) featuring the villain Red Skull.  We used Brady's shield and slung them at the cans.  Everyone had three turns to knock the cans over.

After each activity they earned their training medals that I made out of craft paper and yarn I already had in my craft stash.

I bought a Super Hero coloring book for and colored the pages and laminated them for the Super Hero stations.

The Food and Treats:

Thank goodness for my friend, Jandy who came over LATE the night before and helped my make these Super Hero cake pops!!!  Theydidn't come out quite as I had imagined, but still cute nonetheless.  Jandy was a lifesaver!  I would have given up and trashed the whole thing!  We made the masks and capes out of fruit roll-ups. I'm thinking next year I may just give in to buying cupcakes at Sam's Club, save myself some time, energy and worry!

I made food for each of the Super Heros as well....

The crowd enjoying their lunch!

The Gifts:

Batman LEGO set from Aiden and Ninjago LEGO set from Gabe.

*Not able to come to the party was his friend, Daeson, who gave him a ninja and horse set

Star Wars LEGO set from Lily

PaperJamz from Cameron and a Robot from Logan

Hot Wheels set from Tara and a CARS LEGO set from Rachel

After gifts we played Super Hero Powers Cherades and then we had our Birthday song and the cake pops!

Chris arrived home right after all of the kiddos left (he had to work), but we opened gifts from our family and Grammie and Grandpa together.

Some awesome Star Wars LEGO pens from Grammie and Grandpa Graf.

Chris and I got Brady this LEGO set, a Star Wars LEGO travel case, a Super Hero shirt and a Harry Potter LEGO PS3 game.  Are you seeing a pattern here???  YES, our boy loves Star Wars, LEGOS, Super Heroes and Harry Potter!!! Oh, and video games!!!

We were going to get him a bike but he is inbetween sizes right now so we'll see how much he grows by this summer and take it from there!  Grammie and Grandpa Graf also gave him some money to buy a baseball mitt for t-ball this year and a church movie about Abinidi, which we love because we try not to watch TV or other movies on Sundays.

Grammie and Grandpa Morgan sent Brady a subscription for Ranger Rick magazine, which he be getting in the mail, he got re-usable Star Wars color pages from Auntie Nickie, Uncle Nick and cousins, Lexi and Chloe and some b-day money from GG and Papa Morgan.

It was a great birthday...and now I'm going to take a rest from crafting for quite some time!!!